1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print control apparatus capable of analyzing a print job received from an upper apparatus and generating print data suitable for printing, a print control method therefor, a computer-readable memory medium storing a program for such print control method and such print control program.
2. Related Background Art
Conventionally, the print job supplied from a host computer to a printer has been outputted by the printer in the received order. The printer has been incapable of changing after wards the order of output of the print jobs or outputting another print job by interrupting the job in current printing operation.
With the recent popularization of networks, the printing operation through a network is becoming common. In such environment, plural users common by use a printer. Therefore, while a user is outputting a print job of a large amount by a printer, if another user wishes to output a print job with such printer, such another user has to wait for a long time until the print output can be obtained. Such long wait constitutes a serious problem if such another user needs the printout urgently.
Also, in case such another user sends the print job to the printer through the network, there is required a useless work of visiting the printer in a distant location repeatedly in order to check the progress of the printing work.
As explained above, the mere improvement in the print process speed cannot flexibly adapt to the print requests from plural users, thereby incapable of attaining the customer satisfaction.
In order to resolve the above-mentioned drawback, the present invention executes, in accumulating the print jobs received from an external apparatus and processing such print jobs in succession, such control, based on an entered instruction, as to execute the output of an instructed print job by interrupting the execution of any of the print jobs and inserting the process of the instructed print job. Thus the user can arbitrarily change the order of output of plural print jobs by a simple instructing operation and the printing apparatus can promptly and flexibly adapt to the print requests from the plural users.
Also, in designating an interruption printing from the host computer, the user can change the sheet discharging method and the sheet discharging unit for the designated interruption printing, so that the prints obtained in the interruption print job can be prevented from mixed stacking with the prints of other print jobs.
Also, when visiting the printer for taking the prints belonging to the user, the user can execute the interruption printing by informing the printer of the ID of the user through an operation panel, a magnetic card reader or a bar code reader of the printer, so that the user is not required to return to the host computer in order to achieve the interruption printing.